CAT/C/57/D/551/2013
1.
The complainant is Mr. Taoufik Elaïba, a Tunisian/Canadian national born on 11
July 1962 in Tunisia. He claims to be the victim of a violation by Tunisia of articles 1, 2,
and 11 to 16 of the Convention. The complainant is represented by counsel. Tunisia made
the declaration under article 22 of the Convention on 23 September 1988. The Convention
entered into force for Tunisia on 23 October 1988.
The facts as submitted by the complainant
2.1
The complainant was arrested at his home on 1 September 2009 at around 5 p.m. by
about 13 plain-clothes officers of the national guard from El Aouina, a suburb of Tunis. 1
The officers produced no arrest or search warrant. They beat up the complainant inside his
house, slapping him, kicking him and hitting him with a truncheon all over his body. When
the complainant tried to run away, one of the officers caught his foot and dragged him
along the floor over a piece of tin from a fence, opening a 12 cm long cut in his belly. The
complainant still bears the scar of this. The officers took papers, money and the children’s
two computers. At around 6.30 p.m. some of the officers loaded the complainant’s car with
all the things taken from the house and drove off in it, while others left in the car of the
complainant’s wife. Neither of the cars has ever been returned. The complainant was driven
away in an unmarked car and taken to the national guard post in El Aouina, Tunis.
2.2
The complainant was held for 11 days in El Aouina. When he arrived at the national
guard post, he told the officers he needed medication for his heart, but they would not let
him have any. To intimidate him, one of the officers told him he was not answerable to the
Ministry of the Interior, but directly to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, then-President of Tunisia.
At around 9 p.m. he was taken to the office of the section chief. During questioning, he was
slapped very hard on both sides of the jaw by officers. They then brought a chair,
completely undressed him and lay him on his back with the calves of his legs resting on the
seat of the chair. While he was in this position, they hit him very hard on the soles of his
feet with a rubber stick for about five minutes, until the blood had drained from his feet (a
form of torture known as falaqa). Then the officers put his feet in a bucket of cold water
and ordered him to walk. They put a motorcycle helmet on his head and beat him on the
head with a baseball bat for about 15 minutes. As a result, the complainant to this day
suffers from tinnitus. At around 2.30 a.m. the officers took him home to pick up a few
belongings and then took him back to the national guard post in El Aouina.
2.3
For the next five days, the complainant was tortured. On the first day, officers tied
him by the wrists and ankles to a large wheel fixed to the wall and spun the wheel very fast
in one direction and then the other until he fainted. On the second day, officers sprayed his
genitals with a gas and again tortured him by foot-whipping (falaqa). On the following days,
the complainant was also given electric shocks from a device attached to his body by two
electric wires. He was also repeatedly beaten on the fingers with various implements. To
this day, one of his fingers is still swollen. One evening, one of the officers ripped out the
nail from one of his big toes with a pair of pincers.
2.4
During his 11 days in custody, the complainant wore the same clothes, had only a
sandwich a day to eat and was allowed to go to the toilet only once a day. He received no
medical treatment, even for the open wound on his belly from the cut inflicted by the piece
of tin when he was arrested. Apart from the questioning and torture sessions, he was kept
tied to a chair in the corridor, where he spent every night. After the sixth day, he was asked
several times to sign the transcripts of his questioning without reading them. When he
asked to read them, the officers hit him. As Tunisian law limits the time in custody to three
days, renewable once only by decision of the prosecutor, one of the officers forged the
1
2
According to the complainant, the national guard reports, like the police, to the Ministry of the
Interior.
GE.16-13706